The honorial court, part of the manor court, heard distraint, also called "distress", issues. Distraint was a landlord's method of forcing a tenant to perform the services of his fief. To distrain by the fief, a lord first obtained a judgment of his court. Otherwise, he distrained only by goods and chattels without judgment of his court. A distraint was merely a security to secure a person's services, if he agreed he owed them, or his attendance in court, if he did not agree that he owed them. Law and custom restricted the type of goods and chattels distrainable, and the time and manner of distraint. For instance, neither clothes, household utensils, nor a riding horse was distrainable. The lord could not use the chattels taken while they were in his custody. If cattle in custody were not accessible to the tenant, the lord had to feed them at his expense. The lord, if he were not the King, could not sell the chattel. The action of replevin was available to the tenant to recover property which had been wrongly distressed. This court also determined inheritance and dower issues. The court of the vill enforced the village ordinances. The hundred court dealt with the petty crimes of lowly men in the neighborhood of a few vills. The shire and borough courts heard cases of felonies, accusations against freemen, tort, and debts. The knights make the shire courts work as legal and administrative agencies of the Crown. Admiralty issues (since no assize could be summoned on the high seas), and tenement issues of land held in frankalmoin ["free alms" for the poor to relieve the King of this burden], where the tenant was a cleric were heard in the ecclesiastical courts. The church copied the assize procedure developed by the Royal Court to detect ecclesiastical offenses. Trial was still by compurgation. Bishops could request the Chancery to imprison an offender who had remained excommunicant for forty days, until he made amends. Chancery complied as a matter of course. This went on for six centuries. The delineations of jurisdiction among these courts was confused and there was much competing and overlapping of jurisdictions. However, the court could appoint arbitrators or suggest to the parties to compromise to avoid the harshness of a decisive judgment which might drive the losing party to violent self-help. The office of coroner was established in the last years of Richard's reign to determine if sudden deaths were accidental or due to murder. Chief Justice Ranulph Glanville wrote a treatise on the writs which could be brought in the Royal Court and the way they could be used. It was a practical manual of procedure and of the law administered in the Royal Court. Chapter 7 The Times 1215-1272